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vForum 2015: Having a hybrid Cloud strategy is the way forward, says panel

Having a unified hybrid Cloud strategy should be at the forefront of any technology leader’s mind, according to a panel of speakers that were voicing their views at vForum 2015 in Sydney.

VMware Europe, Middle East and Africa vice-president and chief technology officer, Joe Baguley, said we’re now entering a world of hybrid applications, meaning that the need for the unified hybrid Cloud has proliferated.

“It’s about both on-premise and off-premise merging into one unit. That’s been our focus and we want to simplify how businesses build a software-defined datacentre. There needs to be a higher level of management to break down silos between networks, engineering, and so on,” he said.

Juniper Networks systems engineering and center of excellence vice-president, Russell Skingsley, said IT play imp part to reach customers at scale and that the degree of economic growth and the degree of connectedness represents potential customers in Asia-Pacific.

“To reach customers at scale, IT is the only way to do it. Australia is a huge marketplace is businesses are willing to grasp it. This country is seen as a thought leader and we have a window of opportunity to take advantage of that, but it must be soon,” he said.

Macquarie Telecom head of architecture and engineering, Palaseri Sujith, claimed many businesses’ focus are now on hybrid Cloud and hybrid IT, enabling them to seamlessly utilise Cloud technology without needing to re-architect their infrastructure.

“The customer now has the ability to extend datacentres into businesses like ours using their carriers – it’s quite powerful. So, we aim to deliver more solutions, so that others find the adoption of Cloud easier.”

Lenovo enterprise business group director, Rob Makin, said, traditionally, IT has been a back-office function but there has been demand in current times to move that to front of office.

“Many have probably spent millions on what is a back office IT project. What we’re seeing now with our customers and the demand of the digital economy is to move that focus from back-office to front-office.

“So the investment has to be around taking advantage of the digital economy and how you market to customers. IT have had to change and evolve and continue to be disruptive moving forward. It’s about people and process,” he added.

Skingsley mentioned that the single biggest challenge many businesses face is the ability to combat the organisation’s inertia. He claimed to address the agile marketplace, businesses need to first get over that and make the significant move.

“You look at the opportunities presented by this massive growth and you know you need to change the way you do business but you’re unwilling or not capable of changing how you do business because of infrastructure systems. The challenge is to move infrastructures forward to provide us with agility.”

Makin agreed with Skingsley and said people transformation is vital as roles in technology are changing and nothing in this field is constant.

“I see innovative businesses building an IT ecosystem that is driving a customer centric approach and with that, how the business is growing and transforming. We need to focus on what’s going to help businesses,” he stated.

Sujith added on to this. According to him, agility is key for any successful business in the modern day and every IT organisation has a huge role to play in making their businesses agile and successful.

“The traditional way of providing IT outcomes might not be the right way to do things today. Cloud has a major role to play in it. IT can continue to apply same skillsets they’ve harnessed over the years but for a benchmark that is now ready to be consumed.

Telstra Cloud end-to-end lead architect, Andrew Brydon, claimed the key to all this is innovation. There’s lot of opportunity within every business to use new ways of development in an agile way and take to market. He also said businesses should look at their application architectures and come up with strategy of how and what they can do to better it.

“The key is to take an agile approach to this. It also comes down to people as well, so if you’re not already doing so, train people in new approaches and support them in what’s going to be an exciting journey,” Brydon said.

Makin suggested business should not be afraid to adopt disruptive technologies to get ahead.

“Look to disrupt and become a challenger. Never consider that you are in a position to stop learning. In change, everybody has to go along with it and we have to continue to learn. Today is the fastest pace of change we’re experiencing in IT and you need to step up now,” Skingsley added.

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